Pat Barker - Regeneration

Because of the rubber underlay, a pool of sweat had gathered in the small of his back. The rubbery smell lingered on his skin, a clinical smell that made his body unfamiliar to him. In the next bed Campbell snored, a cacophony of grunts, snorts and whistles. No screams ever woke him. On the other hand he himself never screamed, and Sassoon had been at Craiglockhart long enough now to realize how valuable a room-mate that made him.

Fully awake now, he dragged himself to the bottom of the bed, lifted the thin curtain and peered out of the window. Wester Hill, blunt-nosed and brooding, loomed out of the mist. And yesterday, he thought, shivering a little, his statement had been read in the House of Commons. He wondered what would happen next. Whether anything would happen. In any event there was a kind of consolation in knowing it was out of his hands.

He knew he was shivering more with fear than cold, though it was difficult to name the fear. The place, perhaps. The haunted faces, the stammers, the stumbling walks, that indefinable look of being ‘mental’. Craiglockhart frightened him more than the front had ever done.

Upstairs whoever-it-was screamed again. He heard women’s voices and then, a few minutes afterwards, a man’s voice. Rivers, he thought, but he couldn’t be sure. Quaking and comfortless, he propped himself up against the iron bedhead and waited for the dawn.

∗

Prior hauled himself further up the bed as Rivers came in. He closed the book he’d been reading and put it down on his bedside table. ‘I thought it was you,’ he said. ‘I can tell your footsteps.’

Rivers got a chair and sat down by the bed. ‘Did you manage to get back to sleep?’

‘Yes. Did you?’

Silence.

‘I wasn’t being awkward,’ Prior said. ‘That was concern.’

‘I didn’t, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t sleep much after four anyway.’ He caught the flicker of interest. How quickly Prior pounced on any item of personal information.

‘Thanks for showing up.’

‘You hated it.’

Prior looked slightly disconcerted, then smiled. ‘I don’t suppose anybody’d choose to be seen in such a state. I don’t really see why they had to call you.’

‘They were afraid the fear might bring on another attack. Though in fact you seem to be breathing more easily.’

Prior took a trial deep breath. ‘Yes, I think I am. Do you know I detect something in myself. I…’ He stopped. ‘No, I don’t think I want to tell you what I detect.’

‘Oh, go on. Professional curiosity. I want to see if I’ve detected it.’

Prior smiled faintly. ‘No, you won’t have detected this. I find myself wanting to impress you. Pathetic, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t think it’s pathetic. We all care what the people around us think, whether we admit it or not.’ He paused. ‘Though I’m a bit surprised my opinion matters. I mean, to be quite honest, I didn’t think you liked me very much.’

‘There’s a limit to how warm you can feel about wallpaper.’

‘Oh, we’re back to that again, are we?’

Prior turned away, hunching his shoulders. ‘No-o.’

Rivers watched him for a while. ‘Why do you think it has to be like that?’

‘So that I… I’m sorry. So that the patient can fantasize freely. So that the patient can turn you into whoever he wants you to be. Well, all right. I just think you might consider the possibility that this patient might want you to be you.’

‘All right.’

‘All right, what?’

‘All right, I’ll consider it.’

‘I suppose most of them turn you into Daddy, don’t they? Well, I’m a bit too old to be sitting on Daddy’s knee.’

‘Kicking him on the shins every time you meet him isn’t generally considered more mature.’

‘I see. A negative transference. Is that what you think we’ve got?’

‘I hope not.’ Rivers couldn’t altogether conceal his surprise. ‘Where did you learn that term?’

‘I can read.’

‘Well, yes, I know, but its —’

‘Not popular science? No, but then neither is this.’

He reached for the book beside his bed and held it out to Rivers. Rivers found himself holding a copy of The Todas. He stared for a moment at his own name on the spine. He told himself there was no reason why Prior shouldn’t read one of his books, or all of them for that matter. There was no rational reason for him to feel uneasy. He handed the book back. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer something lighter? You are ill, after all.’

Prior leant back against his pillows, his eyes gleaming with amusement. ‘Do you know, I knew you were going to say that. Now how did I know that?’

‘I didn’t realize you were interested in anthropology.’

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘No reason.’

Really, Rivers thought, Prior was cuckoo-backed to the point where normal conversation became almost impossible. He was flicking through the book, obviously looking for something in particular. After a minute or so he held it out again, open at the section on sexual morality. ‘Do they really go on like that?’

Rivers said, as austerely as he knew how, ‘Their sexual lives are conducted along rather different lines from ours.’

‘I’ll say. They must be bloody knackered. I couldn’t keep it up, could you?’

‘I think my age and your asthma might effectively prevent either of us setting any records.’

‘Ah, yes, but I’m only asthmatic part of the time.’

‘You have to win, don’t you?’

Prior stared intently at him. ‘You know, you do a wonderful imitation of a stuffed shirt. And you’re not like that at all, really, are you?’

Rivers took his glasses off and swept his hand across his eyes. ‘Mister Prior.’

‘I know, I know, “Tell me about France.” All right, what do you want to know? And please don’t say, “Whatever you want to tell me.”’

‘All right. How did you fit in?’

Prior’s face shut tight. ‘You mean, did I encounter any snobbery?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not more than I have here.’

Their eyes locked. Rivers said, ‘But you did encounter it?’

‘Yes. It’s made perfectly clear when you arrive that some people are more welcome than others. It helps if you’ve been to the right school. It helps if you hunt, it helps if your shirts are the right colour. Which is a deep shade of khaki, by the way.’

In spite of himself Rivers looked down at his shirt.

‘Borderline,’ said Prior.

‘And yours?’

‘Not borderline. Nowhere near. Oh, and then there’s the seat. The Seat. You know, they sent me on a course once. You have to ride round and round this bloody ring with your hands clasped behind your head. No saddle. No stirrups. It was amazing. Do you know, for the first time I realized that somewhere at the back of their… tiny tiny minds they really do believe the whole thing’s going to end in one big glorious cavalry charge. “Stormed at with shot and shell,/Boldly they rode and well,/Into the jaws of death,/Into the mouth of hell…” And all. That. Rubbish.’

Rivers noticed that Prior’s face lit up as he quoted the poem. ‘Is it rubbish?’

‘Yes. Oh, all right, I was in love with it once. Shall I tell you something about that charge? Just as it was about to start an officer saw three men smoking. He thought that was a bit too casual, so he confiscated their sabres and sent them into the charge unarmed. Two of them were killed. The one who survived was flogged the following day. The military mind doesn’t change much, does it? The same mind now orders men to be punished by tying them to a limber.’ Prior stretched his arms out. ‘Like this. Field punishment No. 1. “Crucifixion.” Even at the propaganda level can you imagine anybody being stupid enough to order this?’